The new Fothergilla cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, Bernard McGowan, in Montague, Mass. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new Fothergilla varieties with heightened Fall color on a compact, strong-growing plant. The open pollination resulting in this new variety was made during June of 2001.
The seed parent is an unnamed, unpatented variety of Fothergilla intermedia. The pollen parent is unidentified, as this was an open pollination program. The new variety was selected by the inventor in a group of seedlings resulting from the 2001 crossing, in a nursery in Montague, Mass., in May 2004.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar was performed by softwood terminal cuttings. This was first performed at a nursery in Montague, Mass. in 2004 and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in 14 successive generations. First public access to plants of the variety occurred during August of 2018 in the United States. This offer came directly or indirectly from the inventor, qualifying for the exception allowed under 102(b). Previous to this sale, although the variety may have been publicized in print, plants were not available to the public for propagation.